X on demand: long-term nonpayment

Being as how X-on-demand has felt fit to post about all the wonderful new stuff they're doing, presumably to get more studios and affiliates, I thought it might be useful to talk about our experience with them.

We very, very rarely bring business matters to the boards, but in this case, we've been trying to resolve this issue for over a year, and while we've had lots of communication, all we ever get is a million excuses and delaying tactics, but no money.

When we went with XOD, the previous rep committed to delivering lots of traffic and great sales numbers. That hasn't happened. Since we've been with them (3 years, I think), the grand total sales have been maybe a few hundred bucks. Contrast this to Maleflixxx, AEBN, Hotmovies, and Doggone Media, any of whom deliver more in a week than XOD has delivered in two years. We almost pulled our stuff down a year ago, but were promised that all these new things were happening that would dramatically increase sales. That hasn't happened either.

Now, we've been trying to get the piddling sum they owe us paid, and while they have been responding to emails, it's only been to offer excuses. We've now heard just about every excuse in the book, but the most honest one is "we're behind."

If they are behind in payments to us, which have been owed for OVER A YEAR, I can't imagine what bills they're currently paying. Maybe payments that were due in 2004?

At this point, it's not about the actual dollars due, it's the complete lack of integrity in making numerous promises to pay, never following through, and offering a constantly changing array of excuses as to why we aren't getting paid.

As I said, I really regret having to publicly shame a company to get payment, but I'm hoping that by doing so, it will serve the dual purpose of getting us paid and letting other people know our experience with XOD.

So what about it, XOD?

While all vendors have minimum monthly payout thresholds, I like one that pays WHATEVER balance exists on Dec 31st.

That's more in keeping with sound accounting practices.

Good luck with getting this resolved Chip.
I can honestly say that we never had pleasant experiences with them either after Marc Goldberg left them. We pulled out of there shortly after he left 2 years ago.
At that time we only had 6 titles. They owed us about $60.00. Their minimum was $25.00. A check showed up about 3 months later for that amount. But, after we requested our titles to be removed - we were exclusive with AEBN at that time. They owed us $36.40 in pay. It's not a large amount, like you said its the fact of the matter. Frank wouldn't pay us. He said they were keeping the pay because they needed to compensate for the time to remove our very small amount of titles. After some feuding, we finally got paid.

Now, I'm also noticing that TLA Video is becoming a little late. They pay without a request, but a little late. A check was received last week for November and December. But nothing from January thru March. But at least they paid and they are good business people over there.

Stopped sending them content a year ago too. Have not seen a check from them from them for about a year for the stuff you have still there.

Remember they stopped excepting a lot of gay content a while back.
They still wanted ours then but said they had too much of the main stream gay stuff.
Said that it took too much of "their time" to put up all that stuff!!

So I dont think they care about the gay market.

I've been with X On Demand since April 2005 and they have always done me right. ACH payments appear when the payout threshold is met.

(I don't do checks, and checks seem to be problematic for affiliates as well as sponsors.)

Revenues were higher 2005-2007 compared to now. But I think it is good that consumers have 5-6 choices for VOD.

Consumers spend $20 here and $20 there. If one VOD company goes bust, that doesn't mean that consumers will then spend $40 with a surviving company where they used to spend $20. They're still going to spread it around a bit. (Consumers are conditioned to spend $20 at a time, as that is the primary denomination given out by ATMs).

That's why I cringe every time I hear that AEBN is "merging" with someone else. That doesn't mean that consumers are suddenly going to spend $40 on the merged product, where they used to spend $20 + $20 on the two previous independent products.

Interesting to me that this posting has been here now and they've neither contacted us nor offered any response here in the thread.

I'll keep people posted. It sounds like they really don't care very much about paying their affiliates or studios.

Not to get off the subject or anything... But yappo never even replied to my posting about skimming stats: http://forums.gaywidewebmasters.com/...d.php?t=30310&
I think that's kind of funny too.

XonDemand is a member here on GWW.

Well, apparently they ARE broke. They emailed AJ today and claim that they are so broke that although they owe us only about $250 (and have for over a year). they want to break it up $50 now and $50 "every month or so", which means they aren't even making any sort of serious payment commitment.

I don't like drama, but this is just appalling. If they'd been up front in the beginning, or if they were genuinely trying to make reasonable payment arrangements, it would be different.

I guess it's small claims time. AJ has rental property in North Carolina, and said it was time for a visit there anyway.

Look what they just posted here.
But they act like this post never happened.


http://forums.gaywidewebmasters.com/...d=1#post249250

Not to mention they aren't publicly acknowledging Chips requests or posting anything to resolve the matter.

Hello Chip, I have sent your request to accounting for payment...

I am the affiliate manager for XonDemand, we have just released Flash pay per minute and are moving forward with a stimulus package for adult webmasters doubling new webmaster payouts to help increase traffic and sales to studios.

perhaps you should READ what chip said in this thread. he was told by your company that you could not afford a $250 payment - they'd have to break it up. btw, i'd consider it MUCH more important to pay what you owe than to lure in new webmasters.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by xondemand

Hello Chip, I have sent your request to accounting for payment...

I am the affiliate manager for XonDemand, we have just released Flash pay per minute and are moving forward with a stimulus package for adult webmasters doubling new webmaster payouts to help increase traffic and sales to studios.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by xondemand

Hello Chip, I have sent your request to accounting for payment...

I am the affiliate manager for XonDemand, we have just released Flash pay per minute and are moving forward with a stimulus package for adult webmasters doubling new webmaster payouts to help increase traffic and sales to studios.

---

:wtf: :uhoh:

I can see what they are up to with all this.
It makes sense that they keep paying affiliates since they are the ones that will keep sending them traffic so they can keep making money.
But the poor studios that sent them their vids so you all can make that money gets the shaft.
In a way any affiliate that sends them traffic is promoting stolen content. (since they are not paying the studios for it anymore)

In their contract, it states "Pay periods end on " and it says "Minimum payout .

If you've reached the minimum and are NOT receiving payments. Can't you send a DMCA take down notice to them and their host?

I think that would draw some attention to them when they get something like that.

Actually, Derek, you and I are on the same wavelength.

We have requested that our content be taken down, several weeks ago, and they are claiming 30 days to remove it. We will definitely be sending a DMCA request, along with a press release, on the 31st day.

Our next step, assuming we still haven't received a check, will be to identify as many studios as we can who are on XoD, and send all of them a letter asking them if they've been paid, and if they haven't, offering to help them in filing a small claims action and/or requesting an audit of XoD's records. Since we know that at least a couple of studios have titles there which aren't producing at all, it seems unlikely that they could really have so little traffic as to generate the sales in question.

Oh, and their affilate rep has gone strangely silent.

So... here's the latest update on the situation.

AJ, my business partner, spoke with Rob at XonDemand a couple days ago. Rob, after giving more excuses, did promise that he would get in touch with the president of XonDemand, supposedly the only person who could authorize payment. Rob committed to getting back to us no later than end of business Friday (i.e., today.) We agreed not to post anything else, or to post at any other boards, until Friday evening, to give him a fair amount of time to get back to us and try and resolve the issue.

In spite of a follow-up email AJ sent to Rob this afternoon to remind him of his commitment, we've heard nothing. So, for the moment at least, it seems like just another broken promise.

It's also interestiing to note that XoD's new sales pitch is that they've spent over a half million dollars on new equipment and Flash technology in the last year or two, so if that's true, either they have money, or else they spent money owed to studios and affiliates on this equipment and technology.

I think it's pretty sad when, even after a week's worth of visibliity on various boards, they can't get it together to pay (or even make an *agreement* to pay) a year-old debt of a few hundred bucks owed to a studio that's been with them for several years.

I really do hope we get this resolved. Nobody at XoD is denying they owe us the money, and we get lots of promises and soothing noises, but nobody seems to be opening up the checkbook. But the only thing that seems to be getting any meaningful response at all is chasing their reps around to various boards and talking about our experience. And that's just bad business, and a huge waste of time for everyone involved.

wow you would think that they would be paying everybody what they are making no matter if they are affiliate or producer

Credit where credit is due.

Frank emailed AJ today and said that a check was being put in the mail, for the full amount we're owed. today. Then the accounting person followed up and gave us the check number and told us it's been mailed.

Assuming it isn't sent to the wrong address, or "returned" or any of a million other things that go wrong, I'm told we should have full payment within a few days. I will update again once we receive the check.

Well Chip.... This may help.
A mysterious check came today from XOD. We have not worked with XOD for 2 years and a check comes for $36.81 today! Says the pay period is from October 1 - November 19, 2007.

Weird.

I've been with XOnDemand since about this time in 2005.

In the previous posts in this thread, the one staff person's name at XOD that I didn't see mentioned, was the name of the one person there who seems to get things done for me.

So on 5-1-2009, I sent him a short e-mail with the URL to this thread.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nickbaer

I've been with XOnDemand since about this time in 2005.

In the previous posts in this thread, the one staff person's name at XOD that I didn't see mentioned, was the name of the one person there who seems to get things done for me.

So on 5-1-2009, I sent him a short e-mail with the URL to this thread.

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Hi Nick,
Perhaps you can get them to send us our money? They can keep ignoring our emails and calls, but just send us our money!

$ 0.32 XonDemand for October 2009
$ 97.84 XonDemand for September 2009
$ 195.03 XonDemand for August 2009
$ 112.10 XonDemand for July 2009
$ 102.82 XonDemand for June 2009
$ 113.99 XonDemand for May 2009
$ 76.21 XonDemand for April 2009
$ 99.50 XonDemand for March 2009

No, I don't think so.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by amvcdotcom

Hi Nick,
Perhaps you can get them to send us our money? They can keep ignoring our emails and calls, but just send us our money!

$ 0.32 XonDemand for October 2009
$ 97.84 XonDemand for September 2009
$ 195.03 XonDemand for August 2009
$ 112.10 XonDemand for July 2009
$ 102.82 XonDemand for June 2009
$ 113.99 XonDemand for May 2009
$ 76.21 XonDemand for April 2009
$ 99.50 XonDemand for March 2009

---

I contacted their hosting company, since XOD doesn't reply to e-mail and has disconnected their phones.

This is the most recent reply:

"If you would like your videos disabled, let us know, we can email their
admin and give them 48 hours to remove the videos or we will shut down
their site."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nickbaer

I contacted their hosting company, since XOD doesn't reply to e-mail and has disconnected their phones.

This is the most recent reply:

"If you would like your videos disabled, let us know, we can email their
admin and give them 48 hours to remove the videos or we will shut down
their site."

---

That's great! Keep us posted as to what actually happens.

We still have two titles still listed with them. I just sent a request to have them taken down. We'll see...

My issue isn't specifically non-payment but rather stats I know are wrong. In two years our two titles listed with them generated a whole $6.00. That's just plain BS. These were our best selling titles with other VOD companies.

For whatever it means, I have noticed the featured video and other content on the home page of the gay section hasn't changed in weeks (I never visit the other sections so I am not sure if it is across the board or not). It used to be new content on that page every day. Have they just given up on the site entirely and it is just sort of hanging out there for it's current customers to use? Hmmmmmm.

There's been no employees since about the first of the year.

Well then, that makes sense why nothing is changing on the website, along with all the other things I've been reading about.

On a personal level, I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did.